July 2004

The Justice for Kirsty campaign continues to attract media attention with this thorough piece by Alix Kirsta in The Daily Telegraph.

BBC News Online catches up with the story we posted yesterday.

As Malaysian police investigate whether the speedboat that killed a young British tourist off the island of Redang on Saturday strayed into waters set aside for swimmers and snorkellers, The [London] Times reports that a new inquiry will be opened into the death of the singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl.

Last weekend’s tragedy in which 23-year old Joanna Stillwell was struck by a speedboat while scuba diving is painfully reminiscent of the untimely death of MacColl, 41, who was hit while diving off the Mexican island of Cozumel – one of the world’s top dive sites – with her two young sons in December 2000.

As well as seeking justice against the person she believes carries the greatest culpability for her daughter’s death – the owner of the powerboat, Guillermo González Nova – Kirsty’s mother, Jean Newlove, has tirelessly campaigned to ensure that a similar accident cannot happen again by calling for more severe punishment against those who break the rules and endanger water users.

González Nova is the boss of the Comercial Mexicana retail chain and one of Mexico’s wealthiest businessmen. (He is pictured here consolidating alliances at the 2002 society wedding of the Governor of Veracruz’s son along with Señores Slim, Salinas Piego and Azcárraga – three of Mexico’s billionaires.)

Mexicanwave contributor Elizabeth Mistry wrote of the Justice for Kirsty Campaign in The Independent last October and again in The Times on 1 April. An hour long BBC documentary will be shown at the Edinburgh Television Festival on 28 August.

Whatever happens over the coming months, it is hoped that divers in Mexico end up better protected – with at the very least marker buoys placed around ‘safe’ areas to indicate that boats are prohibited.

Oaxaca is the place to be over the coming days. The Guelaguetza – also known as Lunes del Cerro (“Mondays of the Hill”) is a wonderful spectacle of music and dance, and one of the most colourful celebrations in the Americas. As always, this year’s festivities take place on consecutive Mondays – 19th and 26th July.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is reportedly telling tourists that they should consider boycotting golf courses in arid areas, according to Giles Tremlett, the Guardian’s man in Madrid. Large parts of the coastline around the Mediterranean is being threatened by plans to built hundreds of new golf courses, concludes an environmental report. Research by the WWF suggests that a golf course needs about 1 million cubic metres of water per hectare per year – roughly equivalent to the water consumption of a town of 12,000 people.

Loreto Bay, with the imposing Sierra de la Giganta mountains, the Camino Real hotel, golf course and estuaries along the Sea of Cortez

Many golf courses are now being built or converted to use grey water and treated sewerage water. Courses can also act as a natural filter for stormwater and runoff by incorporating freshwater lakes into their design. However, I am left to ponder the potential environmental impact of the multi-billion dollar Escalera Nautica mega-project, launched by FONATUR, which includes the construction of 10 new marinas, dozens of hotels and more than 30 golf courses along the coastline of the Sea of Cortez (see Planeta.com).

WWF calls on the tourism industry to install water saving devices and re-use wastewater for landscaping and golf courses. In Mexico, Marlene Ehrenberg Enriquez has created Mariposa de Agua – a water saving programme for hotels in Mexico.  

So, try to pick out those hotels that use recycled water for watering golf courses.

The Incantation of Frida K.

“I was born in rain and I will die in rain,” begins Kate Braverman’s The Incantation of Frida K., an imagined life journey of Frida Kahlo, who died fifty years ago today on 13 July 1954.

BBC News Online looks at her life and work and reports of commemorations in Mexico.

I recommend Braverman’s book, which opens and closes inside the mind of Frida, at 46, on her deathbed, taking us through a kaleidoscope of memories and hallucinations… on the threshold of life and death, dream and reality, truth and myth.

Something like 2,500 artists from nearly 40 countries will perform at the 32nd Festival Cervantino, which will be held in Guanajuato and other locations in central Mexico from 6-24 October.

The programme, featuring performances by global artists from the fields of music, opera, theatre, dance, cinema and literature has been posted on the official Festival website. This year, it is the turn of South Africa and the state of Baja California to receive special invitations.

The importance of the Festival was underlined last April when it received the Max Spanish American Prize for Scenic Arts, awarded by the General Society of Authors and Editors of Spain.

Photo credit: Festival Cervantino – 2003 © Jonathan Clark. Published with permission

Witty Gabriel Orozco’s multifarious exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery features a complete selection of sculptures, drawings and photographs that give the public a broad view of the artist’s conceptual talents. Born in Xalapa, Veracruz in 1962, Orozco now divides his time between Mexico City, Paris and New York, working without a formal studio, instead responding to the places, situations and materials at hand.

He’s a clever chap, says Adrian Searle in The Guardian.

As part of a collaboration with Platform for Art, Orozco has designed a poster (left) that will appear randomly throughout the London Underground during the summer.

Gabriel Orozco is at the Serpentine Gallery, London, until 30 August.

Photo credits: [TOP] Black Kites (Papalotes negros) 1997; Photo courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York © Gabriel Orozco. [BOTTOM] Vitral (Afternoon Kites in Jaipur) 1998 © Gabriel Orozco. Published with permission.

The Mexican Embassy has moved to posh new premises in Central London and have launched an improved website. Note that if you need a visa the Consulate office will remain at 8 Halkin Street, London SW1X 7DW (Tel 020 7235 6393; Mon-Fri 09.00 – 13:00).